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Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

businessinsider.com

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Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#311

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

hanniabu wrote: post #191
pascoej wrote: post #162

Yang does have an interesting idea for campaign finance reform too. 100$ a year for any citizen to spend on political campaigns. In some ways I think this is bigger than the UBI. If everybody spent this voucher it would be ~23B, almost 4x what was spent on federal races in 2016. I think it will be more likely that our elected officials make better policy for normal people if their campaign funding also comes from the…

Yeah I really like that you could support what you want as it gives more control to the citizens.

How? It does literally nothing for special interests buying politicians, it just adds MORE money into the system. No thanks.

Side note... not many people here would like the never ending series of populist presidents this would bring if it did work.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#312

Post by maxsilver »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #257
gonational wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ve misunderstood. I’m not suggesting that the rent would go up because of the increased demand for a living in Austin. I am suggesting that the rent would go up because everybody has at least $1,000 per month of free money, on top of whatever income they earned.

By what mechanism does that cause the rent to go up? The entire reason people are setting up shop in Austin is that it's so much less expensive than San Francisco. If landlords in Austin tried to raise rents then people would go to Kansas City or Buffalo or Louisville. Some of the landlords would figure out that it's more profitable to have tenants at lower rents than higher rents and no tenants.

> If landlords in Austin tried to raise rents then people would go to Kansas City or Buffalo or Louisville.

In the real world, most people can't just relocate their life on a whim, and the majority of citizens are more-or-less locked into a specific area for long periods of time, for a whole bunch of reasons. (Employer, Spouse, Children, Extended Family, Networks, etc)

It's not impossible to relocate or anything. But most people can't do so, and the few who can usually can't do so easily. It's not like window shopping for cars or clothes, these markets are effectively soft-Monopolies.

If landlords in Austin raised rents, most people would just have to eat it, unless it got to dystopian levels that forced them to relocate.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#313

Post by [deleted] »

sethammons wrote: post #159

I like the idea of freeing people to be able to quit and get a new job any time, where quitting today means a real threat of losing one's home, transportation, or ability to eat (never mind fueling the cycle of debt that keeps so many down). I think it would be a net benefit if people could tell oppressive employers to fuck off without fear. However, a welfare state is a real thing to be worried about. My sister work…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#314

Post by carapace »

nixpulvis wrote: post #223

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Welfare is a tax, and a much needed one since the alternative costs even more. I don't really see how a universal basic income (UBI) solves much of anything that other welfare programs couldn't solve more effectively. If the argument is that it's easier to just give everyone $1,000, then I think you're a lazy policymaker.

> There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Sure there is. In fact, all lunch was free until we invented money and farming.

The Sun is a free lunch. "It's raining soup, grab a bucket!"

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#315

Post by carapace »

paulddraper wrote: post #239
nixpulvis wrote: post #223

There's no such thing as a free lunch. Welfare is a tax, and a much needed one since the alternative costs even more. I don't really see how a universal basic income (UBI) solves much of anything that other welfare programs couldn't solve more effectively. If the argument is that it's easier to just give everyone $1,000, then I think you're a lazy policymaker.

Welfare programs are horribly inefficient and full of perverse incentives. But I doubt UBI is any better overall. In the U.S. native tribes have effectively had UBI for years and years, whether from government settlements, or casino windfalls (granted, sometimes with limitations on mobility...but hopefully this system would work without just giving it to urban landlords). The economies of many native tribes are notor…

> many native tribes are notorious troubled

Victims of genocide have additional complicating factors, eh?

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#316

Post by maxsilver »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #310
maxsilver wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way that works is if UBI is both guaranteed and super high. Like "everyone gets a guaranteed $50k/yr" super high. The UBI Yang and folks are talking about is so low that it doesn't offer any of those benefits. $1k/month worth of UBI wouldn't even cover average rent for a single person in any of the ~20 most populated cities in the US. $1k/month doesn't quite even cover the cost of child daycare for a single…

Making it guaranteed is implied. Making it huge is completely unnecessary and counterproductive. $1k/month doesn't cover average rent in the most populated cities because the most populated cities have the highest rents and its purpose is not to make you average , it's to provide a floor. Supplying enough for the lowest rent in the lowest cost of living place is sufficient for that, and if you want more you can go ge…

> It (UBI @ $1k/month) is just supposed to take starving and freezing to death off the table

My point is that $1k/month does not do this. Hell, minimum wage is approximately 1.5x to 2x greater than UBI (depending on the area), and even it does not quite take "starving and freezing to death" off the table.

"Working Homelessness" is a thing - https://www.npr.org/2018/09/30/652572292/working-while-homel... and https://newrepublic.com/article/154618/new-american-homeless...

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#317

Post by AnthonyMouse »

maxsilver wrote: post #312
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what mechanism does that cause the rent to go up? The entire reason people are setting up shop in Austin is that it's so much less expensive than San Francisco. If landlords in Austin tried to raise rents then people would go to Kansas City or Buffalo or Louisville. Some of the landlords would figure out that it's more profitable to have tenants at lower rents than higher rents and no tenants.

> If landlords in Austin tried to raise rents then people would go to Kansas City or Buffalo or Louisville. In the real world, most people can't just relocate their life on a whim, and the majority of citizens are more-or-less locked into a specific area for long periods of time, for a whole bunch of reasons. (Employer, Spouse, Children, Extended Family, Networks, etc) It's not impossible to relocate or anything. But…

They still can't, because they're not even local monopolies.

There are a thousand local landlords. If they all decided to double rents, maybe only 5% of the local population would move out, but then 5% of the landlords would have empty properties. They're individually better off to get someone in there at a lower rent than have an empty unit, so they advertise a lower rent and take one of the tenants from a landlord across the street. Now that landlord has the empty unit and they do the same thing.

Which means Kansas City is competition for Austin even if 95% of the people there would never actually move. (Assuming cities where the job market, amenities and so on are similar.)

Also, when rents are higher, there is incentive to build new housing to capture the profits.

Rents only get high when they're not just eager to arbitrarily raise rents but somehow colluding to constrain supply, which is hard for thousands of landlords to do except through zoning. But that's completely independent from how much money the local people have. There are cities that have the same median income and higher rents because the local government imposes housing supply constraints.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#318

Post by carapace »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #307
carapace wrote: post #287

Is anyone interested in starting a member-owned "General Automation Corp" to just go ahead and UBI ourselves without waiting for politics? I'm seriously you guys. Bootstrap off some desert land, convert it into e.g. Village Homes[0] (but up to date) using Permaculture, et. al. including local carbon-neutral fuel production integrated into the ecosystem[1], lease/sell units, rinse and repeat. Alongside that, develop a…

If you invent a time machine, go back to places like Taos in the 1960s, lots hippy communes that are now weird architecture AirBNBs. History repeats itself, reality always wins.

Sorry, I have no idea how your comment connects with what I wrote.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#319

Post by rpedela »

gonational wrote: post #226
anovikov wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there will be less injection that now right, in case UBI is implemented? No "new" money will appear (unless you suggest printing more and more trillions). This is the same money taken away as taxes. Except now it goes to those in need, instead it will go to everyone: now almost all of that money is consumed and so is indeed a "cash injection", instead the portion of the money - that goes to those already doing OK…

> No "new" money will appear... ... except that part where $1,000 per month per person in the US comes out to about $4 trillion, which is 100% of all taxes collected. There is no universe in which this much money can be given to every citizen in the US without creating new money.

It is closer to $3 trillion because children wouldn't receive the UBI as far as I know. Still a big number for sure.

Re: Sam Altman and Andrew Yang talk UBI

#320

Post by dannypgh »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #238
Aloha wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I look at UBI as a replacement for a part time minimum wage job, not for working. Meaning it ought to give you about 250 dollars a week. I also view it as a replacement for having minimum wage too - but no one will work for 2.00 and hour either. UBI will free throws labor force, and make it easier for labor to be more mobile and move to where the jobs are - the other key about UBI is everyone gets it, no matter if we…

> " ...the other key about UBI is everyone gets it, no matter if wealthy or poor " Of course if you have anything above poverty level income, it gets snatched right back plus whole lot more though taxes to cover the other UBI recipients who don't. The "everybody gets UBI" rhetoric doesn't really fool anybody; money doesn't come out of thin air.

> money doesn't come out of thin air.

It can, though. Money is created all the time by banks only having to keep a fraction of their deposits on reserve. You deposit $100, they lend out $80, then you have $100 (in the bank) and someone else has $80 in cash (and an obligation to repay). $180 exists in a real form when at the beginning only $100 existed.

For the US Treasury, the rules are even stranger. Like a bank, they can write checks for whatever they want, as long as they do so in a manner consistent with the law (and laws can be changed). Unlike a bank, there can never be a "run" on the Treasury (no Treasury check can ever bounce for insufficient funds) because they can literally just print more money.

It is entirely possible to just deficit spend your way to a UBI. Many economists would predict this to create inflationary pressure - and indeed it might - but predictable inflation, even at moderate amounts, is beneficial to those who those who carry debts. This can create incentives for investment (you don't want to sit on your money if it's losing value) which may result in actual wealth creation.

Inflationary monetary policy effectively acts as a tax on those who hold currency, yes, but it's not a zero sum game. Plus people who receive these checks will spend it in the economy or deposit it with banks to create more of it. Economics is not well enough understood for there to be a consensus on what this would do in aggregate, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably lying.

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